


One of Those Things

by DarylDixonGrimes



Series: Desus Holiday Bingo '17 [2]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Desus Holiday Bingo, Grinding, Kissing, M/M, Top!Jesus, admitting feelings, angst to sex, bottom!daryl, tons of angst, what do we want? a boy worth fighting for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2019-02-14 06:47:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13002147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarylDixonGrimes/pseuds/DarylDixonGrimes
Summary: "People are going to die.And it’s been so long that he’s not sure they’ll ever know what peace means again. Because even if they do beat Negan, there’s probably someone else right behind him. Another Governor, another Gareth, more Wolves at the gate.He’s so fucking tired, and he knows those damn blue eyes can see that. Because they see so much. Daryl looks down at the grass.Jesus lays a hand on his shoulder and dips his head to find his eyes again. They bore into Daryl and needle and needle and needle and he wants to look away and he wants to gouge them out and he wants to kiss the feathery lashes that rise and fall and rise and fall."





	One of Those Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StackerPentecost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StackerPentecost/gifts).



> For the "camping" square

Hilltop looks a lot like some kind of hippie music festival. By the time everyone from the Kingdom and Alexandria and even Oceanside converge on it, there are tents everywhere, a few real ones with mesh windows and zippered walls. And a whole lot of makeshift ones made out of multicolored tarps that make the whole scene look like patchwork quilt made of plastic.

It’s jam-packed and when Daryl finally finishes helping settle Judith somewhere in Barrington (because Rick’s not up to it or anything else), he steps outside and wants to hurl. The only way to walk anywhere is through one of the narrow paths between rows upon rows of people barely protected from the sun. And those rows are all bustling like a shopping mall right before Christmas.

He doesn’t even have his own tent yet. He doesn’t know where he’s going to sleep or if he’s even sure he remembers how to sleep anymore. He picks the path that seems to be least populated, pulling his arms in tight and holding his breath when people bump into him or brush against his side or his back. He’s gotten so used to the empty, empty space in the new world that all this proximity is making him feel clautrofuckingphobic and irritable, like he’s ready to take off running and chew people’s heads off all at once. And while he’d been on board with crowding here before, the whole thing seems like a powder keg now. One single person having a random heart attack or aneurysm or deciding to stab their neighbor because tensions are so damn high, and it’ll be like Patrick in the prison all over again.

His path takes him by the pen. By the group of Saviors all looking out at the undulating mass of people. At Gregory simpering at every single person who walks by. In Daryl’s mind, they should all be dead men. Every last one including that cowardly fuck. And if they didn’t need the bullets, he might have already taken care of it. But he’s still not happy about it, and he’s sure as shit not happy about Jesus making that call for everybody.

Jesus. They should have left that fucker to rot when they had the chance.

And maybe he’s slowing because it seems a lot of the campers have avoided coming down by the makeshift prison if possible. And maybe he’s slowing so he can deliberately glare at all of them. But he needs to pour all his hatred for them out somehow, even if it’s not satisfying, even if someone puts a hand on his chest to stop him from taking another step forward to sock that long-haired Savior fuck in the jaw.

He meets postcard-blue eyes, feels the rage in his veins temporarily quell, melting away at the point of contact between them before spreading through his limbs. Then he sees the bag of vegetables and canteen of water and feels it ignite all over again. He grabs at the gloved hand on his chest and violently throws it off him.

“Daryl.”

“Fuck you,” he says, knocking into his shoulder when he goes past. Behind him, a Savior wolf whistles and makes a lewd comment about sexual tension. Daryl’s fingers twitch but he keeps walking. Out, out, out. He has someone open the gate, some vague excuse about walking the perimeter, but he knows he just wants to get away. From the crowd. From those eyes.

Still, he’s useful enough on the outside. The noise and sheer number of the people inside the walls has attracted a few dead, and someone may as well handle them now before they pile up. He unsheathes his knife and starts taking his anger out on skulls and decaying flesh that smells like he feels on the inside.  

It’s a wonder the fucker finds him out there. But he does, taking out another walker before Daryl can get to it, kicking it over and then stomping the last flicker of life out of it with the heel of his boot. Blood gushes onto the soil and grass baked brown by the sun.

“Don’t need your help.” Daryl grabs at stringy, disgusting hair, swinging the walker wide towards him. It’s not close enough to even remotely put him in danger, but the gesture makes his point anyway before he slams his knife down through the crown of its skull.

“I didn’t really think that you did.” Jesus doesn’t even flinch.

“Then why the fuck are you out here?”

“Because we need to talk about our plans, and the way Maggie and I see it, you’re next in command since Rick and Michonne are...”

He doesn’t say it. But Daryl feels all the words in his head anyway.  _Burying their son. Grieving. Leaning on each other, incapable of doing much else._

And he’s mourning and grieving too in his own way. They all are. But it’s hitting them the worst.

“He’ll come around before we need him. They both will,” Daryl says. Though really this is uncharted territory and he has no idea if Rick can even come back from this. The war might already be over because of something Negan had no hand in. “Wouldn’t like my plans nohow.”

“Daryl, I understand why you’re angry, b-”

“Do you?” Daryl growls, pinning Jesus up against the thick wood of the wall. And he knows in some way that Jesus is letting him do it, because they’ve tussled before and if Jesus wanted out from behind the forearm barred across his neck, he already would be. Blue eyes watch and wait patiently while Daryl simmers. “Because the way I see it, you made a choice you had no damn right to make. Those people are a disease.”

“Some of them probably are.”

“No, all of ‘em. All of ‘em that’s ever stood by while Negan burned faces with irons and took women who had no other choice. All of ‘em who walked around havin’ spaghetti or screwin each other or playin’ chess while they stripped people naked and fed ‘em dog food. All of ‘em who were… who were there in the woods when he...”

Jesus waits, his brows furrowing in sympathy, blue eyes pitying. And Daryl wants to swing. He wants to swing and fuck up that pretty fucking face. So he swings, purposely hitting the wall beside his head instead. The pain blooming in his knuckles from the impact is as welcome as the splinters burrowing into his skin.

Again, Jesus doesn’t even flinch. Like he knows Daryl won’t hurt him even though it’s all Daryl wants to fucking do. He wants to tackle him and roll around in the grass and make him feel as shitty as he does.

Instead he lets him go and stalks off toward the next walker, shaking the hurt out of his fist.

“Daryl,” Jesus says, following. “Is that what they did to you?”

Daryl pauses. He doesn’t turn around. He can’t. He can’t see those fucking eyes and that face. He can’t see the source of that voice softly asking the question that no one else, not even Rick, has fucking asked. Daryl knows they care that whatever happened to him happened, he  _knows_  that, but no one has fucking  _asked_.

Until now.

A hand presses softly between his shoulder blades.

And Daryl wants to say it to someone, even if that someone is Jesus. He wants to open up and let it all pour out and overflow and seep into the earth and into him. But it feels like his tongue is twelve times bigger than it is, like his throat is four times smaller, like his lungs can’t take a full fucking breath.

Jesus waits.

“The hell do you care?” Daryl spits, but it’s empty and hollow just like he is. Just like they all are because war is hell and there are no fucking winners and he’s finally learning that. Even if they win, they’ve still fucking lost so goddamn much.

“They stripped you and fed you dog food?” Jesus asks, voice still soft and even. The words press gently at the knot in Daryl’s chest, prodding at it while they try to untangle even a few of the strands. Daryl still doesn’t turn around. He looks down at the grass and watches a beetle scuttle along in the dirt. He feels cold concrete under bare skin. He rounds on Jesus, pressing a finger into his chest, pressing his forehead against his, all aggression and rage.

He spits the words in his face. Literally.

“In a damn cell in the dark. And they played this goddamn song over and over so I couldn’t sleep or even fuckin’ think. And when I do sleep now, sometimes I hear it. Sometimes I see that fucking sliver of light under the door and I wonder if I’ll ever get out all over again. Those are the people you’re protectin because you still think there’s some good in ‘em. Well I’m tellin you there ain’t, and it wasn’t your choice to make.”

And he expects Jesus to pull away because why would anyone not? Instead Jesus puts his hands on Daryl’s biceps. He squeezes them and pushes, no fucking  _nuzzles,_ his forehead against Daryl’s.

“You didn’t deserve any of that,” Jesus says. “You don’t deserve anything they’ve done and none of it was your fault.”

And just like that, Daryl fucking shatters so hard he’s surprised he doesn’t cut them both to pieces. The sob that rips out of his chest is whisper quiet but somehow louder than thunder. And he knows he should still be fucking angry and as bitter as piss and vinegar but instead he’s crying with his his forehead pressed against Jesus’s, tears sliding off the end of his nose into the dirt.

He’s not sure how long they stay like that, how long Jesus half-holds him while the weight of the world pours out onto the soil, how long it is before he stands up straight and wipes tears away with the back of his hand, how long it is before Jesus takes whatever moment they’re having and breaks it all to hell.

“Maggie and I still need you inside.”

And if Daryl could ever go a full twenty minutes without being angry these days, it isn’t now. He shoves Jesus back like he’s just physically attacked him. He watches him sigh. He mostly doesn’t give a shit. Mostly.

“You don’t,” Daryl says, already following the wall around again, looking for more things to stab. Because even if holding onto the weight of the torture was one of the things always thrumming beneath his skin, waiting to lash out, he’s got a lot of other things on reserve.

And Jesus can go straight to hell.

He finds things. He stabs things. Jesus follows.

“Man, you just really don’t know when to give up, do you?” Daryl asks.

“Someone needs to come stand in for Rick, Daryl, and you make the most sense. We need a plan.”

“Kill all of ‘em starting with those fucks you got locked up inside,” Daryl says. “There, take my input back to your little powwow, and pretend you give a shit that it’s what a lot of us want.”

Daryl looks for more things, his knife so tight in his hand that it hurts, and his fingers cramp and the nerves sting and he lets it happen, holding on, walking with purpose toward a walker about fifty yards out. But Jesus grabs him roughly by the shoulder, forcing him to spin around.

“This is a group effort, Daryl. All of us. Together,” Jesus says. “I get why you’re pissed. I do. But we have a war to fight, so come inside and help us fight it. Help us stop the ironing and the torture and the murder and the dick swinging. _Help us._ ”

Daryl’s chest rises and falls. He stares at blue eyes, at smooth cheeks and a forehead still tinted red from being pressed against him while he confessed one of his many painful secrets. For the second time, he wants to punch him. For the second time, he doesn’t.

Instead he says, “Can’t.”

“You can’t?”

“What I said.”

“Why not? Because of a few men locked in a pen eating the vegetables the rest of us won’t? Because you think Rick is going to rally himself and come up with something to save us all? Maybe he will. But maybe he won’t, and we’ve got a whole camp of people in there who will die if Negan shows up and we’re not ready.”

“Fuck you,” Daryl says. And he means it for none of the reasons Jesus probably thinks he does. Fuck him for having a way of needling into all the things he feels. Fuck him for making Daryl want to spill his guts again and again because he can already feel it coming on like vomit rising up out of the pit of his stomach. And it’s black and angry and hot but also so dark and cold. Daryl burns and freezes all at once.

“Daryl, there are families and kids and-”

“Exactly.”

“Exactly?”

Daryl hesitates, tries to stem the flow he know he can’t stop. But those eyes implore and beg to know him, and he can’t say no, not to those.

“What if we lose?” he asks weakly. Because it’s the other thing that’s been bothering him. Ever since the sewer tunnel when he saw Rick’s face crack and fall apart. And he’d made threats to Dwight with Judith cradled in his arms, but he knew they were as hollow as Rick’s eyes.

Even when he went against him, he felt like Rick was their ace in the hole, and he’s not sure they can do this without Rick. He’s not sure he can. And maybe that’s why he’s so insistent they wait for him to find his strength again. Like the war will somehow pause itself out of respect for a grieving father.

And he’s scared. Scared he’ll have to make the real decisions because so many of his decisions lead to disaster. And even when they don’t, they still don’t work out and people die and die and die.

People are going to die.

And it’s been so long that he’s not sure they’ll ever know what peace means again. Because even if they do beat Negan, there’s probably someone else right behind him. Another Governor, another Gareth, more Wolves at the gate.

He’s so fucking tired, and he knows those damn blue eyes can see that. Because they see so much. Daryl looks down at the grass.

Jesus lays a hand on his shoulder and dips his head to find his eyes again. They bore into Daryl and needle and needle and needle and he wants to look away and he wants to gouge them out and he wants to kiss the feathery lashes that rise and fall and rise and fall.

“You’ve got just as much to offer us as Rick does. None of us know what we’re doing here, including him. We’re all just guessing our best guesses and trying to do what we think we should, and you know these men better than all of us. We need you in there,” he says. And then he squeezes. “I need you in there.”

“You didn’t answer the question,” Daryl says softly.

Jesus sighs and pauses to take care of the walker they never dealt with. It falls limp to the ground.

“I don’t know,” he says. “But I know I’d rather try to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

And it’s not what Rick would say. Rick would say they were going to win, and Daryl would counter that they had to, all while thinking of everyone at stake if they didn’t.

But this, this is something else, and maybe he needs to hear it a lot more than some sentiment breathed into the universe with all the air of a prophecy and the inevitably of a lottery win.

Maybe it’s enough that they try and fight because they still have things to live for.

“All we can ever do in this life is keep trying,” Jesus says. “And I’ve never seen anyone else try as much as you do.”

Daryl looks at him and then turns his head toward the woods, the mere sight of them a small comfort.

“None of us can ever know if our choices are the right ones or if they’ll succeed.” Jesus keeps talking. “But that doesn’t mean we’re always wrong in making them.”

He squeezes Daryl’s shoulder again and finally lets go. Daryl misses the warmth and pressure the instant that it’s gone.

He chews it all over before meeting Jesus’s eyes again.

“Alright,” he says, nodding, and Jesus copies the gesture.

“Alright?”

“Okay.”

Daryl follows him back inside the gates, down paths too full of people for him to do anything else but keep his eyes firmly on the space between Jesus’s shoulder blades. He meets with Maggie and Carol and Jesus and Dwight and Beatrice. They talk and scheme and make contingencies for contingencies. They leave room for Rick but they circle around that room too. The “just in case” of that circle goes two ways.

When they’re done, Daryl walks to the window and looks out on the sea of chaos below. He still has no idea where he’s going to fit within it come nightfall, and the sky is already turning from blue to gold. He eyes the spot near the prisoners and considers making a place down there. He could keep a better eye on them at any rate. He’s just starting to wonder if they have any tarps left when Jesus rests his hand on his shoulder again. His gloves are gone, and warmth seeps through the fabric of Daryl’s shirt. He concentrates to keep his next inhale smooth when all his lungs want to do is stutter.

“Did you set up a camp?” Jesus asks. Daryl watches a mother swing her little boy through the air, his face split wide in laughter. It’s a rare point of mirth among the scared faces and tense shoulders. It’s what they’re fighting for.

“No,” Daryl says. “Was too busy makin sure Judy was settled.” She’ll stay with Aaron and Enid and Gracie. Aaron had argued Daryl should hold onto her, but that just didn’t make sense. He loves her, from her blonde curls to her soft whispers of “Unca Dare, luboo.” But he breaks things too easily to risk holding something so fragile for too long, even if he wants to.

“I’ve got room.”

It’s a sentence but it’s also a question, and there’s a suggestion in it too that makes something in Daryl simmer and pop like hot oil. He can hear it there hidden in the spaces between the words and in the intonation of every consonant and vowel.

_I feel things. Do you feel things?_

Daryl feels things. So many things.

He bristles even while he hopes. He feels the biting comment rise up and perch on the end of his tongue. And he’s not angry at Jesus anymore. He shouldn’t have made the call he made when he made it, but Maggie’s already made it clear the men in that pen won’t get to live and that’s enough for Daryl.

The hostility is his own. It’s decades of hating what he is and not being able to pretend he’s not every time the man speaks or breathes near him. It’s years of realizing that self-hate was stupid and nonsensical in every interaction with Tara and Aaron and Eric and Denise and Michonne and, though he didn’t know it until Michonne’s whispered confession years back, Andrea.

He’s not wrong or sick or dirty, but some part of him still feels like he is and the other part is angry that he can’t let that go. And all those feelings crest and fall every time he’s in the same room with Paul ‘Jesus’ Goddamn Rovia.

Which part will win this time remains to be seen. He keeps watching the mother and her son. He keeps listening to Jesus breathe. He keeps biting his tongue.

“Fine,” he says. And it comes out just irritable enough that he’s not sure which side of the war in his head has actually won. “Alright,” he says, more softly and then he knows the victor. And when he looks at Jesus, he knows he knows too.

And the trailer is small but it feels wide open compared to the makeshift campground outside. Daryl breathes in the space, relieved somehow that he’s landed here instead of out there. And he knows at least some of that relief has to do with the man shrugging out of his trench coat, peeling out of layers and layers until all that remains are dark brown trousers and a simple gray shirt. Tussled hair sits tucked behind pale white ears.

Daryl can’t look away. He doesn’t want to and is vaguely aware he doesn’t even have to.

Jesus invited him in here and it wasn’t strictly platonic. Even if all that happens is stares and warm hands on his shoulders and conversations where Jesus mostly talks and Daryl mostly listens, they won’t be just friends by the time Daryl leaves in the morning to go check on Judith and Rick.

Jesus looks up and finds him watching him, and Daryl doesn’t look away. Even when Jesus smiles. Even when he purposely starts unbuttoning his shirt lower and lower, revealing swaths of pale skin that make Daryl dizzy. The shirt gets folded into the pile of clothing and Jesus comes and sits next to him on the couch without it. Like it’s the most natural thing in the world, like Daryl’s eyes aren’t roaming and roaming with hunger and the need to memorize every scar and muscle and jut of bone through flesh. Like he hasn’t licked his lips just thinking about touching even a single inch of that skin.

“I have cards if you want to do something,” Jesus says. And for the first time, Daryl’s brain corrects the name. Because he’s not Jesus anymore, not to him. The rest of the world can call him whatever they like, but from this moment on, Daryl is keeping Paul.

“Somethin,” Daryl repeats, his tongue almost sticking to the roof of his mouth when he talks, and he wants to do a lot of somethings, but none of them are playing cards. And he thinks that it’s too soon since he’s only just now letting himself admit he even feels the way he feels even if he's felt it for a while. And he thinks that there is no “too soon” because either one of them could be dead at anytime. Negan might be rolling up the gates right now as he sits in a small trailer and lusts and wants.

Daryl’s hand twitches on the couch beside him. He can almost feel the smooth skin beneath his fingers, but he can’t bring himself to move and bridge the gap.

And even if he does bridge it, he’s not sure how to go beyond that. How to move his ugly mug closer to Paul’s impossibly pretty one, how to press lips together, how to say he wants more. How to say he wants this so he can feel something nice when it’s been so long since he’s felt anything but this constant weight of pain and anger and anxiety.

And it’s not like it’s the first time he’s done this, though it’ll be the first time since Before. He’s done enough to know that he is what he is even if he's still warring with it. He’s done enough to know some of the things he likes. He’s done enough to know how good Paul would feel in his arms or how good it would feel to be in his.

“Should I get them?” Paul asks.

“Get what?” Daryl’s already forgotten the last thing he said, too focused on that tiny trail of hair disappearing into the front of his pants.

Paul laughs and stands up, starts to walk away from the couch. And he couldn’t go more than ten feet away given the size of the room, but anything more than one is too far. Instinct has Daryl grabbing at him, his hands softly grasping Paul right below the waist. He stops and lets Daryl touch him.

Shaking, Daryl lets his hands slip across skin, fingers brushing over hip bones, thumbs making circles while he memorizes the texture of Paul’s skin. Daryl can’t believe something so soft exists in a world so full of sharp edges.

Still facing away from him, Paul reaches down, and Daryl’s already flinching to pull away when Paul covers over his hands with his own, holding them against him while he slowly turns around, the movement forcing Daryl’s palms to drag across his stomach and back, across that tantalizing patch of soft dark hair, across toned muscles sitting right above the waist of his pants.

Blue eyes meet his, dazzling and heated. Warm palms find either side of Daryl’s face, gripping around the bottom of his jaw to hold his head firmly in place.

Daryl’s heart beats in his ears, the center of his body heavy and tight and growing tighter still while Paul leans down, down, down.

A single brush of lips, and Daryl hears someone whine quietly before he realizes that someone is himself. One swipe of their mouths together is all Paul gives him at first. It’s not even really a kiss. It’s a toe dipped into a swimming pool, a forearm thrown under a running shower, a hesitant half-step on an old wooden ladder.

A calloused thumb skirts across Daryl’s bottom lip. Paul’s eyes search him for any resistance or hesitation and Daryl gives back none. And then they’re kissing for real, Paul moaning into his mouth while Daryl’s hands slip off his sides, re-orienting themselves on his bicep and in fistfuls of dark hair.

He half-sits in Daryl’s lap, one knee slipping between his thighs to straddle his right leg while lips move, tongues dance, teeth playfully nip. When Paul finally pulls away, they’re both panting.

“I can’t tell you how long I’ve wanted to do that,” he says, breathless, his lips and the space around them pink from brushing against Daryl’s beard. Daryl’s face burns too. He reaches out and brushes the tuft on Paul’s chin.

“Then why’d you stop?” Daryl mumbles.

“I have my reasons.” He smiles.

Paul stands up, nudges Daryl until he lays down on the couch and then crawls between his legs, leaning down to kiss him again. Only this time it’s not only kissing. It’s Paul’s body rolling in slow, deliberate waves on top of his, hips grinding down until Daryl groans around the tongue in between his lips.

“Jesus,” Daryl pants, pulling back because he can’t focus enough to keep kissing him when he’s rubbing against him like that. And he doesn’t know which Jesus he means.

“Daryl,” he says back. “You have far too many clothes on.”

“And you don’t?”

Paul laughs, peeling himself away from Daryl to stand up for the second time. And Daryl wants to grab him and pull him right back down but he knows there’s no getting their clothes off while Paul’s laying on top of him. He stands up too and kicks off his boots, both of them unable to keep their hands off of one another now that the dam has been broken. In between feverish kisses, Paul gets him out of his pants. Daryl slips the vest off and unbuttons his shirt, leaving it on otherwise. He doesn’t want to have that conversation right now, not while Paul’s rubbing him through his boxers, not while he’s rubbing back through the open V in his pants.

“Are you sure about this?” Paul asks, quirking up an eyebrow, and Daryl’s grateful that he asks even though he’s more damn sure than he’s ever been about nearly anything.

“Want it,” Daryl says, before trailing hands down silky smooth skin. “Want you.”

Paul smiles lasciviously, and slides his thumb under the waistband of Daryl’s boxers before pushing them down where they fall on the floor. He looks down at Daryl’s erection, breathes a little heavier.

“You should get comfortable,” he says, jerking his head back toward the couch, his long hair shaking gently with the movement. Daryl hesitates, chewing on his lip. He knows how he wants this, but he doesn’t know how  _Paul_ wants it. He’s so slender and petite, and Daryl knows how someone looking in might think they _should_  slot together, but it’s not at all how Daryl wants them to fit.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Daryl croaks, crawling onto the couch on his hands and knees. He hopes that sends a clear enough message. He hopes it’s a message Paul wants to receive.

Elsewhere in the trailer a drawer opens and closes.

“Oh wow,” Paul says, and Daryl crooks his neck to find him staring, a bottle of lubricant in his fist.

“Is this okay?” Daryl asks, feeling like his neck is about twenty shades more red than it’s ever been.

“That. Is fucking beautiful,” he says, “but I’d really rather you turned over.”

Daryl frowns and asks, “why?” Disappointment seeps through the word.

“So I can look you in the eyes while I slide as deep inside of you as I physically can.”

A delicious shudder runs down Daryl’s spine, and he does as Paul asked, sliding down onto his back. When he settles, Paul crawls over him and kneels between his legs.

“If at any point you get uncomfortable,” he says, stroking up and down Daryl’s thigh with one hand. Daryl can’t stop trembling at the contact, at the promise of what’s about to happen, at the near-turquoise blue eyes staring down at him all lust-fueled but serious at the same time.

He nods before Paul finishes the sentence.

“Do you want me to do this or would you rather?” Paul asks, unfurling his fingers to reveal the lube. Daryl stares at it, the sentence processing through his brain. Would he rather do what exactly? He can’t even think, not with the fingers on Paul’s other hand trailing up and down his skin, fluttering like moths.

“Daryl.”

“You,” Daryl says, barely louder than a whisper. And he doesn’t even know what question he’s answering, but he’s still sure of the reply anyway. He trusts him or he wouldn’t be here naked from the waist-down with Paul towering over him.

The lid on the bottle pops. Slick fingers slide across his rim. The question finally makes sense. Daryl’s breathing becomes even more shallow, even more labored.

Paul leans forward and puts a hand on his chest, even while he works, slowly and deliberately coaxing Daryl open so that they’ll fit together like they both want them to.

“Breathe,” he says, drawing patterns on his chest. And Daryl tries to comply, he really tries, staring at those otherworldly blue eyes while his body begs so much for more, more, more that he’s tempted to just tell him not to bother with this part at all.

To just take him and slide in even if it hurts because Daryl needs it and one, two, three fingers aren’t enough.

“Please,” he says quietly.

“Please what?” Paul asks.

“You, please you.” Daryl reaches for the arm disappearing between his thighs for emphasis, pushing it away. The room is spinning in the best way possible and he’s breathless and he just can’t take it anymore. And it feels so strange to have gone from acknowledging some kind of something between them to full-on desperate need in the span of half a day, but that’s where he is.

“If you’re sure,” Paul says.

“Pretty damn sure.” Daryl squirms.

“Okay.” Paul pushes on the sides of his pants, taking his underwear with them all the way to his mid thighs, and it’s so hot to watch them slide down his hips and legs, even hotter to see how hard he is for this, for them. And Daryl wants to taste it but not as much as he wants to feel it. Another time if there is another time.

He has to fucking fight for another time.

The lube pops open again and Paul slicks it along his length, closing it and dropping it beside them on the couch. And all that’s left to do is…

Daryl swallows, the space at the back of his throat dry and scratchy when he does. He waits while Paul leans over him, supporting himself on one arm, the other guiding and guiding until the tip of his cock is in. Then it becomes a support beam too, falling on the couch on the other side of Daryl's head. Daryl grips both forearms tightly while Paul's hips push against resistance, not forcing, but coaxing it to give way.

And when it finally does, when Paul finally slips all the way in, blue eyes locked on Daryl’s as promised, his mouth slacks open and he moans quietly. And it’s a sound Daryl never knew he fucking needed, but he swears to God and any other fucks up there listening that he’s never ever going to let this go.

He has to fucking fight not to let this go.

Paul waits, and Daryl can see the tension written all over his entire body. Every muscle is taut and flexed, and he knows Paul wants to rock in and out of him with everything he has, but he’s not. Instead he’s waiting, eyes on Daryl.

And Daryl’s wits are still in a hundred thousand different places, but he’s actually starting to remember how to do this and what it entails. Or maybe he just wants him so much that he knows he has to say something.

“Okay,” Daryl says.

And Paul starts to fuck him. It’s slow at first, like he’s getting acquainted with the feel of him, and Daryl’s both fine and not fine with it because he wants it to last forever but he also wants more, so much more.

He has to fucking fight for more.

Weight on his arms, Paul rolls his tiny frame above Daryl’s and Goddamn he looks so fucking good doing it that Daryl wants to die. Each movement highlights arm muscles and reveals flashes of toned abs. Slow, slow, slow until Daryl’s fucking aching with how bad he wants him to just let loose and pound them both into mutual oblivion.

“Jesus, would you fuckin fuck me already?” Daryl finally spits.

“Needy.”

“Slowpoke.”

“You want it fast?” Paul asks.

“Do I need to write you a damn instruction manual?” Daryl squirms his body onto Paul’s cock. Or tries to anyway though it doesn’t feel like it’s really having any impact.

“That would probably be a really amusing read, actually.”

Frustrated to hell, he lets go of Paul’s arms and wraps his hands directly around his bare pert little ass, using his own arm muscles to pull. And Paul lets him, following the motions of Daryl’s nudges until they’re at the rhythm Daryl wants them to be. Until Daryl’s sighing and moaning “Paul” and “shit” and “fuck” up at him with his head thrown back against the cushions.

Paul lowers himself more until they’re chest to chest. Until Daryl’s own erection is trapped between them, finding friction with every thrust.

“Oh Goddamn.”

“You should know you feel every bit as good as I imagined you would.” Paul lathes at his neck with his tongue and mouths at his jaw, tasting him and making Daryl feel like he’s going to split apart.

“I can’t,” Daryl mumbles. His hand finds long hair and grabs at it.

“You can’t what?” Paul asks, still rolling against him like Daryl is a ship and he’s the sea swallowing him whole. Drowning has never felt so good.

“Can’t,” Daryl repeats, his body edging closer and closer. Any minute now, the world will lurch and Daryl will tip right off of it. “Gonna.”

“That is exactly all I’ve ever wanted,” Paul says, and then he covers Daryl’s mouth with his own, kissing him and fucking him and kissing and smooth, smooth skin sliding along his cock over and over and…

Daryl groans roughly against Paul’s lips, pulling back and swearing repeatedly. Between them, his body lets go, his orgasm smearing between sweaty skin. Paul finds his cheek with one hand and strokes it softly the whole time Daryl’s cumming. And Daryl can’t look at him, unable to keep his head from going this way and that way and this way again.

But when he finally finishes, feeling like all the blood has been drained from his veins and replaced with helium, he finds those blue eyes watching him with unbridled intensity. Paul waits until Daryl’s finished to lift himself back up on his arms and look down in between them.

And Daryl knows exactly what he’s looking at and he feels his ears burn even as he watches those eyes roam over his middle, even as he screws up his face because Paul is still thrusting and it feels  _too_  good now.

“Can I finish inside of you?” Paul finally asks.

“Can finish wherever the hell you wanna,” Daryl says, and he means it. He wants to be marked. Again and again, so that no matter what happens in the war or anywhere else in their damn world, he knows exactly who he belongs to and who belongs to him.

“That is a very tempting statement,” Paul says, but he keeps going, strands of dark hair sticking to his forehead with sweat. Daryl keeps letting him, even though every movement of his cock inside of him has him wanting to squirm away. He doesn’t have to hold out for much longer.

Paul’s final moan is long and sweet. Daryl wants to kiss him and suck it right out of his lungs. Instead he strokes his sides until Paul finishes and collapses on top of him. Then he strokes his back and pushes sweaty hair away from his pretty face. Soft lips find Daryl’s neck and then his jaw, his temple, and finally his lips.

The kiss is more languid now, and Daryl likes kissing Paul like this too.

Paul finally pulls out, leaving him empty save the slick wetness he leaves behind. And they’re gonna stain the couch, but Daryl doesn’t care and Paul doesn’t seem to be concerned with it either.

More kisses, more touches, more quiet breathing while they just exist in a pile of fucked-out limbs.

When Paul finally moves, it’s to hitch up his pants and wet a towel. He comes back and softly moves to clean Daryl up, giving Daryl every opportunity to snatch the towel away and do it himself. But Daryl finds he doesn’t mind the way Paul softly wipes at his stomach and between his thighs. It’s nice and gentle and caring in a way Daryl’s never really experienced. And even though his ears get a little hot, he doesn’t want him to stop.

When Paul finishes, he cleans off his own stomach and throws the towel into a pile of dirty laundry. Daryl gathers his boxers and jeans and pulls them back on. He doesn’t bother doing up his shirt, just like Paul doesn’t bother putting his back on.

And he doesn’t know what to say now, now that they’re both casually sitting on Paul’s couch half-dressed. So Daryl leans into him instead, and Paul moves to let him, hooking him under the armpit and slinging his arm across Daryl’s chest. Lips press into his hair.

“How long have you known?” Daryl finally asks.

“That I was gay or that I wanted something with you?” Paul thrums fingers against his bare rib cage.

“The second one, but I guess both.”

“Probably middle school, but I wasn’t honest with myself until later,” Paul says. “There was this boy Tommy. We used to shoot soda cans with his sling shot behind my house after school. Before mom and dad died. I didn’t realize I had a crush on him at the time, but looking back on it.”

Daryl knows Paul spent time in the system, though the details are vague. Still, he finds himself reaching for his hand and squeezing it.

“And me?” Daryl asks.

“Probably the day we met.”

“When I chased your thievin' ass through that field?”

Paul laughs.

“A little later than that,” he says. “You and Rick had me in the car and I was pretending to still be out of it, trying to figure you both out. And there was just something about you I couldn’t shake, still haven’t shaken. I remember watching you and the way you looked out the window and watched the world go by, and I could tell there was so much simmering below the surface beyond what you let most people see. And I think Rick swerved on purpose to screw with you now that I know him, but I might’ve helped him out by falling onto your shoulder when I did. My decision to introduce you guys to Hilltop was because of you. You trusting Rick so much made me trust him.”

Daryl tries to wrap his brain around the fact that Paul’s known he wanted him for so long, that he thinks all of these things about him and has the whole time.

Damn Daryl has some catching up to do.

“Shit,” Daryl finally says.

“It’s okay,” Paul says. “If you’re sitting there thinking about how long it took you, it’s okay. I would have waited much, much longer.”

“Why?”

“For the same reasons I told you that you were the person we needed in that meeting. You’re a good man, Daryl. No one, not even you, could ever convince me otherwise.”

Daryl chews on that. Outside, in the campground, a baby cries loud enough to penetrate the walls of the trailer. Daryl feels momentarily embarrassed about how noisy they’d probably been, but it’s too late to do anything about it now so he pushes it away. It's a small worry in the grand scheme of their lives now. 

“This thing,” Daryl says, “between us.”

“Yes?”

“Are we? Is it?” Daryl sniffs and scratches at his beard. “You want it to be permanent? For now, I mean. I don’t expect you to go huntin down a church and a priest or nothin.”

“More than anything. If that’s what you want,” Paul says. “We have to take the happiness where it comes, and you would definitely be that for me.”

“Sap,” Daryl says, “but me too. For you.”

Lips press into his crown again.

“I was planning to offer you the bed and sleep on the couch,” Paul says, “but under the circumstances, I’d much rather share.”

Daryl looks over at the small bed. They’ll have to practically sleep on top of each other to fit. He doesn't exactly hate that concept.  
  
“Lil early for sleepin, don’t you think?”

“I still have those cards.”

“Break ‘em out then. I’ll teach you a game me and Merle made up when we was kids,” Daryl says, sitting up. “It’s called Shit or Get Off the Pot.”

Paul stands up too, softly grabbing Daryl and taking another kiss before he digs out the worn deck of playing cards.

And Daryl teaches him the game that he hasn’t played since before the dead started walking. And they laugh and tease each other and Daryl only thinks about Carl and the war and the prisoners in the pen a few times. Far more often, he thinks about blue eyes and the way Paul’s smile could stop a twister in its tracks.

And when he curls up against Paul’s lithe body later that night, he knows they have to win.

Because he has to fucking fight to keep this and all the other thises out there in that campground, all of them whether they’re new or old or barely formed or still waiting to form with one side looking at the other and silently hoping.

Because some things are damn well worth trying to keep even if all you can do is try.

And Paul ‘Jesus’ Goddamn Rovia is one of those things.

**Author's Note:**

> I tumble you tumble we all tumble
> 
> DarylDixonGrimes on the tumbles
> 
> Come tumble with me


End file.
